Selections from Christian- book.com

Does God belong in the public arena of politics, business, law, and education? Or is religion a private and personal matter only? Pearcey challenges 21st-century believers to overcome our cultural double-mindedness and learn to "think Christianly" about secular topics. The new study guide offers practical hands-on steps for crafting a full-orbed, faith-based worldview. 512 pages, hardcover from Crossway Books.

Written in the waning days of the Roman era, Augustine's Confessions are the moving diary of a soul's journey. From his earliest memories of childhood, through his turbulent and licentious youth, to his resolute conversion at the age of 32, Augustine traces a pilgrimage of unbounded grace. Throughout, he passionately addresses the spiritual questions that have engaged thoughtful minds since time began.

Have you ever wondered how a "nice" person like you could be so misunderstood, even hurtful? Tripp gets right to the heart of our communication problems and shows how the gospel changes the way we understand and solve them. Learn to bless others with your speech and in so doing, be blessed yourself. 245 pages, softcover from Presbyterian & Reformed.

Historic Church Documents(Includes Reformed confessions) Link list courtesy of the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics

Patrick Henry CollegeA classical Christian liberal arts college dedicated to training those who will lead our nation and shape our culture with biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding.

OnTuesday, September 8, 2009, President Barack
Obama has planned an address to America’s school children. I am the principal
of a Christian school. I would like to explain why I believe Christian schools
should not participate in this event. My objections center on three issues: 1)
the proper role of parents in directing the education of their children, 2) the
impossibility of religious neutrality in government directed education, 3) the authority
and role of public servants.

The
Role of Parents in the Direction of the Education of Their Children

Christian
education is not secular education with prayer and a Bible class added in.
Christian education should be God-centered, with its purposes, content,
principles and methods in subjection to the Scriptures. One of the most
important starting points when considering the education of children is who is
responsible for it.

Hear, O Israel:
The LORD our God, the LORD is one.You
shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your
heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them
when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie
down, and when you rise.”(Deut.
6:4-7)

Here, as in other parts of Scripture, God directs parents
to take responsibility for the education of their children. Nowhere do we find
any reference to the civil authorities having any responsibility in this area.

While the address President Obama will be making may be a
well-intentioned attempt to encourage students to be diligent in their
schoolwork, the very premise upon which it is predicated is antithetical to the
biblical view of the role of parents in education. The preview materials for
this address that I have received make no mention of parents or their role in
directing the education of their children. Instead, it appears that the
students will be instructed to set their own goals and “take responsibility”
for their own educations without regard for or consultation with their parents
or with God.

The President is not simply providing a positive role
model for scholastic diligence; he is speaking with the authority of and
through the agency of the Office of the President. The tone of the materials we
have reviewed implies that the president has authority in the area of education
and that the students are to receive teaching and instruction from him and be
accountable to him in a manner similar to the way they should receive teaching
and instruction from their parents or their pastors.

This is not the first time I have been disturbed by this
administration’s (or the Department of Education’s under this and previous
administrations) attempts to stand between students and their parents. I
recently received materials from the US Census Bureau to teach students about
the upcoming census. Listed under the purposes for this program (2010 Census:
It’s About Us) was this statement:

It also seeks to enlist
students as advocates for participation in the 2010 Census CNMI in their
homes and communities, especially in communities that might otherwise be
undercounted or overlooked, and as a result may lose out on a wide range of
benefits. [Emphasis theirs]

Ignoring the political implications of this statement,
let’s just analyze the parent-child relationship that is described. Students
are to be enlisted by their civil government as advocates of a government
program and then sent out to instruct and
convince their parents on how they should cooperate with the census. I can’t
help but think of the children of George Orwell’s 1984.

This is
not an isolated incident. There has been for many decades an increasing trend
of cooperation between political and government organizations, the government education system and education
professional organizations to achieve their desired social changes by bypassing
parents and directly enlisting children (whose naïveté make them much easier to
convince than adults) to advocate for various causes. Just as parents have a
responsibility to protect their vulnerable children from those who would
physically harm or use them, they also have the responsibility to protect their
children from those who would harm or use their minds and hearts.

The
Impossibility of Religious Neutrality in Government Directed Education

The President’s address is a
cooperative effort between the United States Department of Education and the
Office of the President. The US government’s educational system is one that
professes to be religiously neutral. However, an educational system that
refuses to acknowledge God’s creative and providential roles in science,
history, language or any other discipline is not religiously neutral.

For example, if I were to
teach a biology course without mentioning the structure or functioning of living
cells, one would assume that I consider this material irrelevant to the study
of biology. Likewise, when I teach a biology course without mentioning God’s
works of creation and providence, I imply that He is irrelevant to this
subject. How can such a position be religiously neutral?There are only three possible positions on
the claims of Christianity in regards to the subjects we teach. Either they are
true, they are not true or it really doesn’t matter. None of these positions is
religiously neutral. Each is loaded with far-reaching spiritual implications. By
stating they are religiously neutral, the government school systems take the third
option; they regard the claims of Christianity as irrelevant. They claim that
Christianity is irrelevant not only to the academic subjects they teach, such
as math, history and literature, but also to all the other ideas they propose
or assume, such as the formation of character, the role of education and
ethics.

For example, educational
systems that train children to look within themselves for strength or to look
to education for creating a better world are not religiously neutral. These
ideas are in rebellion to God’s sovereignty over His creation, His people and
the salvation He has provided for them through the work of Jesus Christ our
Savior. They deny the effects of the Fall on mankind and the seriousness of the
resulting curse under which we and the rest of creation now find ourselves. They
deny our only real hope for redeeming this fallen world: Jesus Christ. Does God
use education for the sanctification of His people and for equipping them for
His service in making the world a better place? Yes, He does, and this is why
He instructs parents to take it so seriously. However, suggesting that an
education apart from God, without regard to the spiritual state of the students,
will produce a religiously neutral Utopia is in direct contradiction to the
Gospel.

Ideas such as these are not
always explicitly proposed and defended. They are most often assumed and thus quietly
underpin the entire curriculum. So subtle are these assumptions and so blind
are even well educated Christians to them, that they become ingrained in the
thinking of our children and ourselves without our even knowing it. They slip into
our own worldviews without our giving them any critical consideration.

In my opinion, this is the
primary reason why parents should not submit their children to any allegedly
neutral government or private education. Like a virus that silently invades the
body and then suddenly blooms and kills, so the godless ideology of secular
education creeps quietly into the mind until its implications destroy the
heart.

The
Authority and Role of Public Servants

While we desire to teach our
children to respect all civil authorities when they are operating within the
spheres of God-given and Constitutional authority, we hope to educate them to
discern the proper boundaries for that authority. As discussed above, it is
parents, not civil authorities, who are responsible for education. The very
existence of biblical Christian schools should be predicated on the assumption
that they exist to serve parents in this responsibility.

It is no coincidence that
American government officials are sometimes called public servants. Although there is now much confusion on our
culture’s concepts of leadership, the American system traditionally viewed
leadership as a service to the people. This model of leadership, in contrast to
the dictators and tyrants of the world, is directly modeled by the highest
leader of all, the King of Kings Jesus
Christ, who laid down His very life for His people. Likewise, the Scriptures
describe Christian leaders—pastors, judges, husbands and fathers—pouring out
their lives for those they lead and the people they lead showing proper respect
for their authority. The people are to respect their leaders and even be
accountable to them within their proper spheres of authority, but they are not
to serve them.

The original materials which
were published for President Obama’s address very explicitly referred to the
students serving him through their school work. After a public outcry, the
materials were rewritten; however, the assumptions are still there that the
students are accountable to their president for their schoolwork and that they
do their work in service to him. Not only does this undermine the authority to
which the children are accountable to for their schoolwork, namely their
parents, it also turns the notion of public service on its head. Service to one’s
country is a good and admirable thing, but we must not confuse service to one’s
country with service to a man. Our
military personnel, for example, serve their country (the people) under the
leadership of our President; they do not serve our President.

Perhaps you have seen the
recent video in which celebrities “come together to pledge their service in
2009.” (They are called celebrities, but I have to admit that I recognize less
than half of them.)
Not only do these people pledge to do such things as feed the world’s hungry
children, free millions of slaves and cure Alzheimer’s disease, but they pledge
to do so in service to Barack Obama. (Were they able, but unwilling to do these
things when Mr. Bush or Mr. Clinton was President?) Demi Moore even makes the
stunning pledge to “be a servant of Barack Obama.” Besides the obvious man-made
Utopian theme discussed above, this is a shocking call for servitude to a
leader, eerily similar to those we find in support of tyrants such as Fidel
Castro or Kim Jong-il. Even the graphics of the President used in the film have
a creepy “Big Brother” feel.

The President’s address isn’t
as explicit as the video, but the principles are the same. Our children are
being encouraged to create a works-based better world through doing their schoolwork
in service to their President. Christian parents, however, should be teaching
their children to do all things in service to and for the glory of God. Even
when these ideas are innocently cloaked in seemingly good and harmless works
such as diligence and perseverance in schoolwork, the insidious danger is that
when otherwise good works are done with a motivation that denies the Gospel,
they are no more than filthy rags. This is a vision and a philosophy from which
we must protect our young children. It is a philosophy that we must expose to
our children who are old enough to understand it and work out its implications,
lest they fall prey to it.

The
Paideia of the Lord

In his letter to the
Ephesians, Paul instructs fathers to bring their children up “in the discipline and instruction of the
Lord.” (Eph. 6:4) The word that is translated as “instruction” here is the
Greek word “paideia”.This is a word
that has no English equivalent. To the Greeks, paideia was an education that
fitted the students to be free citizens of the State. They were to be inspired
by Homer and the other poets and playwrights to embrace the ideals of the
State, such as courage and glory. They were to be taught to think, reason and
persuade as effective leaders. However,
Paul was proposing a radical idea when he instructed fathers to educate their
children in the “paideia of the Lord.” He was instructing fathers to equip
their children not to be citizens of the State, but citizens—priests and
kings—of the Kingdom of God.While we
agree that those who are equipped with a biblical worldview and a classical
education are well equipped to be citizens of a nation with a representative
form of government, our primary purpose for education must be to equip our
students to serve God in His kingdom regardless of the earthly nation in which
they find themselves. We are to train our children to love the things of God
and dedicate their lives to serving Him in whatever callings He leads them.

Yet this address and the
other practices of the government school systems mentioned above seem more in
line with the Greek notion of Paideia than with Paul’s. It is raising up a
generation that serves the State—or worse yet, the rulers of the State—rather than
God. It does so under the guise of the “public good” or “service to mankind.”

For these reasons I would
submit that Christian schools and Christian parents should not participate in
this event. I would also hope that Christian parents who still have their children
in the government schools will take this opportunity to reconsider whether they
are fulfilling their holy calling to raise their children in the “paideia of
the Lord.”

Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival, a showcase of Christian thought in the blogosphere. Christian writers are invited to submit their best posts from the last week. If you would like to participate in or host future Christian Carnivals, please refer to our guidelines.

The Journey sends us Exiles: Living Missioinally in a Post-Christian Culture. We live in a time when more followers of Jesus are living outside
the church than ever before. People who are still very keen to follow
Christ are giving up on going to church. What does that say about the
people that are 'dropping out' and what does it say about the church?

The Journey contributes Freemasonry Freemasonry has been a subject that has divided people for many
years. Some church leaders have entered fully into Freemasonry while
others have denounced it as evil. So what do Freemasons believe? Where
did it all begin? Should we embrace Freemasonry or are there legitimate
warnings we should heed?

Martin LaBar of Sun and Shield contributes What I Believe about Origins, which he says "is an
attempt, for what it's worth, to set forth what I believe is true about
how the universe, the earth, and living things came to be as they are."

Shops
being burned, believers being spat on, hit, beaten and arrested. We
all could probably name countries where this is happening. There is
one country where this is happening that I'm not sure most people are
aware of. This post highlights that country and the trouble believers
are having there. Veracity-The Way shares the story in Persecution.

Welcome to the first Christian Carnival for the Year of Our Lord 2007! May God bless you all with a deeper love for Him and a surer faith as you grow in Christ this year.

Each week, Christian blog writers are invited to submit their best post of the week to the Christian Carnival. Enjoy this week's submissions from a variety of Christian perspectives and traditions.

Perhaps you've never celebrated Ephiphany. Perhaps you don't even know what it is. Kim Anderson at
Mother-Lode invites you to become students of the sky along with the Magi, in
Trumpet Stars and Wise Men
. Explore God's signs and wonders at the birth and death of His
Son using the speed and power of modern computers coupled with the
witness of Biblical prophets and Roman and Jewish historians of the
first century.

Lo-Fi Tribe sends us Spong Joins Dawkins and Harris. Spong cites the recent militant atheist push by Dawkins and Harris as
good for Christianity because it correctly address what he calls
"Infantile" beliefs regarding God.

For your reading pleasure, Wittenberg Gate presents the latest edition of the Christian Carnival, a collection of links to the week's best posts from a variety of Christian blogs. If you are a Christian who writes a blog and would like to contribute to future Christian Carnivals or host a Christian Carnival at your blog, find entry and hosting information here.

Mick at Romans 15:4 Project presents The (In)Humanity of Choice.
"Choice" has become an idol of the humanist worldview. It relegates
life and humanity to something to be controlled and eliminated at a
whim. This is an exhortation to the Church to speak Truth against the
idols of our day!

Bible Study and Theology

Codex: Resources for Biblical Studies Blogspot contributes The Strange New World of the Bible This post looks at the historical and cultural gulf between our world and the world of the Bible. Using the industrial revolution as an example, I argue that we need to do as much as we can as readers and interpreters to recognize the gulf between our world and the “strange new world within the Bible” so as to ensure we properly read and interpret and understand the biblical text.

PhilThreeten sends us And On the Eighth Day... What if creation was starting all over on the eighth day? Insights from a Protestant's reading of the Catholic Catechism that focus on creation and redemption.

David Ker presents Welcome to the new Lingamish posted at Lingamish. David Ker's Lingamish Blog is now at a new home. In celebration, David is proposing a new series of posts called "Bible Puzzlers."From the Anchor Hold sends us ....and the Lord will raise us up...... The Feast of the Dormition, alias the Assumption, is celebrated by all the ancient Christian Churches, and has been since before the Church fully emerged from Lydia's living room and Polycarp's tomb. Butwhat does that seemingly small piece of early Christian history --- that Jesus' mommy died and what happened to her body --- have to do with us believers almost two millennia later, and why is it doctrine?

Fides et Veritas contributes The Fear of God. This is a post that explores what it means to fear God. It is meant to help dispel the myths about what it means to fear God.

Vons Takes sends Interpretations of Scripture and says, 'Catholics have their method of interpreting Scripture, and Protestants theirs; but there is a very popular third method nowadays, and it is blasphemous in its assumptions.'

Patricia at A Better You blog presents The Big Picture. Patricia illustrates how God gives us strength in incredible ways to balance living happy, healthy, successful, and free.

Don Bosch over at The Evangelical Ecologist has some green thoughts on Jesus' parable of The Good Samaritan in a post titled "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Christian ecology is good samaritan sort of work. Obviously our attention is on restoring what has been abused (the land and the people and creatures living there) and bringing healing to the sick and injured by restoring the health of ecosystems and living conditions for people. With our growing knowledge of science and environmental technology and a lot of elbow grease we can redeem places that have been left for dead. Our relationship with God as stewards of his Creation is also restored. But it would be a shame if we stopped there."

Chasing the Wind shares The Meaning of Life. We only have this one life. Don’t sit there, frozen by disaster. Cast that bread upon the waters and reap the rewards of seeing others find the love of Christ. God calls us to plant and reap, not just sit there and observe life going by.

What in the world is an "IMix" and what can it have to do with stillness of soul? Find out this week at Light Along the Journey as John does one of his "Monday Media Meltdowns" on the topic Be Still My Soul.

Leslie Carbone at LeslieCarbone presents THANK YOU! to the heroic British intelligence personnel who thwarted the recent terrorist plot.

Reading

Semicolon guides us to literature's Best Conversions. After perusing Penguin's list of 100 Best Classics in 20 categories, she used some of their categories and made up some of her own for a series of posts. In this post she chose what she thought were the Five Best Conversion Stories in Literature.

A pastor friend who has had to face the kind of church situation I write about in my Controlling Personalities in the Church series shares his wise advice for others who think they may be facing this too common problem.

Advice When Facing Spiritual Authority Abuse

by the Rev. Reed DePace, PCA

I found myself in an impossible position. A man in spiritual leadership, a man I looked up to for his wisdom, commitment and integrity, was asking me to defend him.

Now, I've defended people before. I recognize that in appropriate circumstances, such is the proper response for those who love the Lord and His righteousness. At times, a shepherd is responsible to defend sheep from attacks. Yet this time ...

This time I didn't agree that this man had been attacked. In fact, I thought he was the one doing the attacking. His idea of defending him was to join him in spreading innuendo laden comments about others who confronted him. To defend my friend, I was being told I needed to participate in slanderous gossip about others.

My friend was telling me that the right thing, the godly thing for me to do was to defend him against those who would call him on his sin. He made it clear, If I didn't do this I would prove myself to be one of those unjust, evil men who were wickedly going after him.

Of course I couldn't do this. And when I went to him, to urge a friend to consider his ways, I was attacked.

The pressure I felt, the confusion, the self-doubt, the hurt and anguish. And through it all, the still, small voice of the Spirit whispering through the Bible continued calling me rest in my Redeemer.

I did. I lost my friend. I was attacked. I was drawn closer by Christ to His side. I was taught to rejoice while I wept. I was blessed.

I still love my friend. I still long for the Spirit to convict him that he might be restored. I also learned how to face such circumstances next time in greater faith and confidence.

A student project at the Political Science Department at SUNY Stony Brook involves The Religion and Politics in American Life Survey. To help with the project, follow the link and take a ten or fifteen minute survey. You can leave comments at the end of the survey form to clarify your opinions. I have provided this link as a courtesy to one of the students involved, and also agreed to not allow comments on it on the blog, so we don't influence one another's answers. Once the survey is over, I will open the post to comments.

Christian books that deal with practical application issues are often little different than secular self-help books. Do this. Don't do that. Here's a five-step plan for success. Not so with Paul David Tripp's War of Words. This book takes a Christ-centered, gospel approach to considering the issue of communication. He deals with matters of the heart and asserts the only hope for heart change lies with God and the gospel of grace.

Tripp encourages Christians to remember that we are ambassadors of God. To every situation to which we bring our words, we are to bring them in accordance with the goal the One we represent has when He deals with people, that is redemption. That redemption is not just in the sense of judicial forgiveness for sin, but in the Spirit's day-to-day work in the life of a Christian to conform him or her more and more to the image of Christ. Rather than center our efforts on controlling others, punishing them for hurting us or making them do as we wish, Tripp encourages us to die to our own fleshly passions and consider how we can best be used redemptively by God in that person's life.

As Tripp guides the reader through how to think about our words, his advice is entirely Bible-based. It is not what Paul Tripp has found works for him, but rather what the Apostle Paul, and King Solomon, and the Apostle Peter wrote as divinely-inspired instruction.

I skimmed through this book before I read it. I encountered so many anecdotes that involved explosions of hot tempers, that I was tempted to think I didn't need this book. After all, I'm a mild-tempered member of a mild-tempered family. I was humbled as I read it, though, because it goes so much deeper than that and holds up a standard that even the most mature, self-controlled Christian does not keep. Yet, Tripp offers the hope and encouragement that comes from a right understanding of the grace and promises of God.

The writing is clear and engaging. The anecdotes are helpful in illustrating his points, helping Tripp to achieve an almost perfect balance of the theoretical and the practical.

I was going to say that every pastor and elder ought to read this book. Then I thought, well, fathers, too. And mothers. Teachers, of course. Certainly blog writers. And managers and employees. War of Words is for all of us.

Don Bosch at The Evangelical Ecologist highlights a survey
released this week by Field and Stream. The poll indicates a large
majority of hunters, fishermen, and other outdoorsmen who characterize
themselves as evangelical conservatives think global warming is
happening and that people are causing it. Links to poll questions and
raw data too.

CrossBloggin.com wonders if there is hope after that all the Government Schools have not completely destroyed another generation. These students stood up for their rights and won handily.

In “On Icons”Kenny Pearce
discusses the pros and cons of the use of images in Christian worship,
arguing that, while the danger of idolatry is very serious, there are
good reasons for the Church to engage the visual sense in its worship.

Disciple’s Journal has the last of four “checkups” on their impressions of the Emerging Church in the six months I’ve been blogging,

This week's Christian Carnival was scheduled to be hosted by Stephen McCaskill at ChristWeb. He reports, however, that about 20 minutes after posting it, his site crashed. The database is wiped out and ChristWeb is no more. However, Stephen launched his new blog, Musings on Music, and posted the Christian Carnival there. So go on over there to read the Christian Carnival and see Stephen's new site.

UPDATE: The Christian Carnival was posted here at Wittenberg Gate due to continuing technological difficulties. (Stephen still did most of the work.)

In a previous post, Emerging Enigma, I reacted to the statement by Emergent-US against the use of creeds. Carl Holmes, who writes the blog Thoughts of a Gyrovague, left a comment in which he asked some good questions. I felt my response was too much for the comment section, and so I'm making a separate post of them here. Thanks, Carl, for joining in the discussion.

Carl said:

I think that one reason we wish to pass on making a specific statement
is that in the growth of the church creeds have been used to divide,
not grow, the church.

I have heard similar claims in the past from people opposed to using creeds, and the Emergent-US statement hints at this as well. I have never seen the statement supported with examples, however, so it is not clear to me what kind of division is being condemned. Are we talking about dividing heretics from the church? If so, that's a good thing, isn't it? Especially when one looks at a basic, broad statement of faith such as the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, I see no other possible division. Are we talking about keeping error and corruption from the church? If so, that's an important responsibility of the church's leadership, isn't it?

The basis of unity is agreement. People are united around an idea, a desired course of action, an understanding of truth.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11 - 16)

This passage from Ephesians links Christian unity with sound doctrine. It also clearly lays upon the leadership of the church the responsibility to teach the saints to equip them for good works by protecting them from "every wind of doctrine". The necessary prerequisite for Christian work is said to be "unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God."

Unity of doctrine, then, promotes unity of action. Unity of action is not accomplished by ignoring our differences and just deciding we should all get along. That sort of unity is a false one, in which every person sees the mission differently, and as they act on their own ideas, the body moves forward more like an amoeba than an army.

The statement of faith my denomination uses, the Westminster Confession of Faith, was crafted in an attempt to unify the various reformational churches of Britain. The result was a statement on which Presbyterians, Puritans, and Separatists could all agree. It avoided speaking to those doctrines upon which they did not agree. What was so divisive about that? English Baptists could not agree with the doctrine on infant baptism, but adopted an almost identical confession except for the chapter on baptism. Was this divisive? While it points out a difference of conscience in regards to baptism, it also set out many more similarities and allowed the Presbyterian and Baptist Christians to work together where they agreed. Even today, you will find many Presbyterian fans of the Baptist preacher C.H.Spurgeon, even though we differ with him on baptism.

Three confessions which came out of European Reformed churches are known as the "Three Forms of Unity." They delineated a consistent system of doctrine among the Dutch, Belgic, and German Reformed Churches. Again, this was unifying because they all knew where they stood with one another.

Did these creeds also divide? The Canons of Dordrecht, one of the Three Forms of Unity, for example, was written to refute a system of doctrine espoused by the followers of Jacob Arminius, today known as Arminianism. Arminianism, of course, is still a dividing issue in the church today. I would submit, however, that it was not the creeds and position papers on either side of the controversy that divided the church. The creeds merely reflected a division that already existed. What divided the church were human limitations in understanding and interpreting the Word of God, limitations that resulted in different people reading the same Word and coming away with different understandings of what it said.

I see creeds and confessions not as promoting division, but as promoting openness and honesty. Whether I am choosing a church for my family, deciding whether or not to volunteer for a para-church ministry, or deciding in which school to enroll my child, creeds, confessions, and statements of faith help me to make those decisions. They help me to work together with Christians with whom I don't agree on everything, because I know where we do agree. Would I enroll my child in a school that disagreed with my convictions on Arminian vs. Reformed theology? Probably not. Would I volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Center with people with the same differences? Yes, I would.

How can a group expect other Christians to work alongside them or join their movement if they won't tell us what they believe? How can we even know if they are genuinely Christian unless they will state at least their basic understanding of the Gospel? How can we be sure that they are free of serious errors that could harm the flock or our children? Carl said,

"YES use the gospel to decide who is going to be in the church and who is not. WHY add more to it. Plain and simple the bible is the lectio divina and if we believe it GREAT, if we do not, you are not the church."

Fine, but are you willing to state what the Gospel is and state that only those who believe it are in the Church? So far, I see no willingness to do even that. Many people say they believe the "Gospel." Mormons say they believe it, but clearly their understanding of it is different than mine. Of course, if such a statement was made, it would be a creed. It would be a simple creed, but a creed nonetheless.

Refusing to make a statement of belief only raises suspicions. It allows detractors to characterize your beliefs rather than stating it yourself. It promotes confusion. It causes people to take the statements of one person identifying himself with your group and applying it to all, because they have no other information to go on. If your group is unified on the Gospel alone and allows all variations of doctrine as long as the Gospel, as you define it, is agreed upon, then simply say so. That way when folks interact with your movement, its people and its literature, they know what they are getting.

I smile when I hear folks say they believe the church should have, "no
creed except the Bible," since that statement is in itself a creed. Of
course as a Christian of the Reformed tradition, I like to have the
essentials all spelled out. That way we know 1) What the essential
doctrines are that will not be compromised by my church's leadership, and 2) What non-essentials are
matters of Christian liberty and individual conscience: limited church
government, in a sense.

Emergent US has now issued a statement that according to
their faith, they have decided they don't need a statement of faith. I
read the explanation
by the "leading theologian," LeRon Shults, (There are a lot
of leading theologians I have bever heard of, this one included.), on
why this should be so. David Wayne at JollyBlogger and Dr. Andrew
Jackson at SmartChristian.com are both scratching their heads about it, and frankly, so am I. Here's a snippet from Shults:

The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final
set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul,
Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should
commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we
should assent.

I am dumbfounded. For a moment, let's accept Shults' characterization of the writings
of Paul, Luke and John for the sake of argument. (I'll address that below.)
Isn't saying we should be committing ourselves to a mission a credal
statement? What mission is it? Can we commit to a mission we are unwilling to define? What form does this commitment take? The answers to all of these questions are statements of what we believe is true. They are statements of faith.

I was also surprised to see Paul first on this list of non-propositional, mission-minded writers. I think of Paul as the "King of the Therefore." Paul's writings are chapter after chapter of propositional statements and reasoning followed by a "therefore" after which he applies those propositions to ideas and actions. In other words, the propositional statements of Paul are the foundation upon which unity of thought and action (mission, as Shults puts it), within the church are based. I would like to see Shults' support for the assertion that Paul, of all people, did not write as much on propositional doctrinal statements as he did statements about "commitment to a mission," whatever that means. As to John, the overriding theme of John's Gospel, in my opinion, is to answer the basic credal question of who Jesus is. Luke's Gospel and the Acts are narrative works, which are of course focused on actions and events, but not in the way Shults characterizes them.

Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans
to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from
another. The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our
linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to
Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite
propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

It is God who chose language to reveal Himself to us, is it not? The Son of God is called, "The Word," is He not? I agree that God is beyond our "linguistic grasping." He is beyond any sort of grasping we can do, and no one making statements of faith claims to have "captured" the infinite nature of God in them. But that does not mean we cannot grasp some part of the truth He has communicated. Why else would He bother to reveal it? Nor does this support the assertion that we are not to use language to propositionally communicate the truth He has revealed to us.

Does Shults suggest that Irenaeus and
Calvin
would not/did not make propositional statements about what is to be believed and what is not to be believed about God, the Church or the Faith? (My evidence to the contrary can be found by following the links on their names.) Obviously, whatever it is Irenaeus and Calvin believed about the limitations of language, it did not prevent them from using it extensively to define the doctrines of the true Faith and to define heresy. The beliefs of those men cannot logically be used to support a position that was entirely opposite to what they practiced, or to support Shults' charge that those practices are "linguistic idolatry."

This is not a complete analysis of Shults' arguments, just a few thoughts that struck me as I read his statement. I've love to see more discussion on this from all sides or to see a formal debate. Before you go after me on this, though, let me state a few things I believe about statements of belief (word play intended), so I am not misunderstood. I believe:

Statements of faith are always in subordination to the Scriptures and should not reflect any doctrine that is unbiblical or extra-biblical. They should not bind the consciences of men where the Scriptures do not.

Statements of faith that define those doctrines that are essential to true Christian faith are appropriate to be used to define the fellowship of believers, that is, who may or may not join the church, or who we may or may not consider a brother or sister in Christ. I am talking about very basic statements of the Gospel and the nature of God here, such as those based on 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 or John 14:6. The Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed would be examples.

Statements of faith beyond those essential doctrines are appropriate to be used in the administration of the church.They are useful for defining what will or will not be taught by the church's leaders. It is appropriate to use them to define the authority and limitations of church government and discipline.The Westminster Confession of Faith, the Augsburg Confession, and the London Baptist Confession are examples.

Statements of Faith can be abused to manipulate and control believers and can be used for unnecessary and counterproductive divisiveness. The same thing can be said of the Scriptures themselves. There are many things in life that are not evil in themselves, but can be used unwisely or with bad intent to evil ends. This, however does not mean they cannot or should not be used. It means they should be used with wisdom, love, humility and grace.

"The Man"My little congregation is in the process of looking for a pastor right now, so I really appreciated Brad Hightower's thoughts on The Problem of Looking for "The Man", over at 21st Century Reformation. This post made me reconsider how biblical my ideas were on what sort of man we should be looking for, and what kinds of expectations I should have for a pastor.

Minuteman BlogThe Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has a National Blog. Visit for the latest immigration and border security news, as well as reports from the field. I found the site because LaShawn Barber mentioned it on her blog.

BibleGateway.comBibleGateway.com has added some Bible reading plans to the site. If you have not discovered this site yet, by the way, head on over there and poke around. You can search the Bible (many, many versions), for key words, by passage, or by topic. The search engine is excellent and flexible. You can narrow your search to selected books, for example. You can read the Scriptures on site. You can listen to them. You can subscribe (RSS) to a daily Bible passage. Good stuff, and it's all free.

My piano playing has a spotty history. The only thing consistent about it is my lack of accomplishment. I originally learned to play the organ, and played fairly well, but haven't had one of my own since I left my parents' house. We bought a second-hand piano a few years after we were married, and I set out to recover from several years without playing and to transition from organ to piano--something I have never actually accomplished. In time that old piano needed so much work that it was almost unplayable, and I gradually stopped playing.

Recently a friend got hold of some pianos that a school system was selling off and sold us one. It cost us more money to get the thing tuned and lubricated than the piano cost us. So I am back playing again. I pulled out the old book of sonatinas, and started working on them.

Yesterday I was playing one of those sonatinas, a rather jolly sounding thing, when I heard someone behind me coming down the stairs. In my peripheral vision I caught a glimpse of a man-sized figure and assumed it was my husband. It wasn't. It was my son. When I realized that, I was struck by a sudden memory.

He used to dance.

Was it so long ago? It seems only yesterday that I used to play that sonatina and my tow-headed toddler would gleefully bob and spin to its tune. Now he is a fifteen year-old, standing nearby, seemingly oblivious to the music, focused on putting his cell phone on the charger.

The email list for The Christian Carnival has not been functioning, and I have had no success contacting the server. I have therefore started a Google Group list for the Christian Carnival. I have no access to the old membership list, so Christian Bloggers who want to be on the new list will need to visit the Christian Carnival Group site to join. For a short while, I will allow anyone to join without moderation. After the expected initial membership rush, I will begin moderating membership to discourage spammers. During this open membership period, all posts will be moderated for the same reason. As with the previous list, posts to this group should be for weekly entry reminders and posting announcements only.

Please spread the word of the new list on your blogs. I have no access to the old membership list, so we will be depending on word of mouth to get the information out.

Christian Carnival CXIX is up at Brain Cramps for God. Be sure to stop over there and read some of this week's best Christian writing in the blogosphere.Intectuelle has and interesting series going on the topic of women in the church. There's lots of good discussion going on.

JollyBlogger makes a real good point about The DaVinci Code. If you'd like to hear a great lecture on this topic by George Grant, follow this link. You can read James R. White's writing on DVC here.

I spent part of this afternoon visiting Christian blogs to read the messages they wrote for this holiest of holy days. There were so many wonderful things to read! I have linked below to some that I appreciated most.

Mark 10:17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'" 20 And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth." 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" 27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." (ESV)

The pastor preached on these verses at my church this morning. This has always been one of my favorite passages. The events are described in three of the Gospels, the other two beginning at Luke 18:18 and Matthew 19:16. The version in Mark has always been my favorite, though, because of the information given in verse 21 that is not in the others. We are told "Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said..." Jesus loved this man. Though he walked away downcast and shaken from this encounter with the Lord, I am confident that Jesus' love would draw him in and call him to faith.

The man had come to Jesus to find out what he must do to earn eternal life. Interesting, isn't it, that he already knew to Whom he must go? Jesus zeroes in on that kernel of faith, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." Jesus doesn't wait for an answer. He merely plants the seed. Another unasked question hangs in the air. "Why do you ask me? No one gives eternal life except God alone." The question is implied, though, as He begins His answer, "You know the commandments..." (The commandments God gave, yet you now want me to add something to them? No one adds to the Word of God except God alone.)

The man did know the commandments. At least he knew what they said. He was certain he had followed them, and yet something must have been gnawing at him. There must be more, and this Jesus must know what it is. What Jesus did was bring this man to the point where he realized that the Law of God was too high a thing, too perfect a thing for him to keep. Had Jesus been talking to you or me, He would have chosen a different thing to say to reach our hearts. What are those things we cling to, and no matter how hard we try, cannot lay down for the Lord? Is it a besetting sin? A possession? An idea? For this man, it was his wealth. And when he learned he must give up his wealth to follow Jesus, he was broken. This was a law he could not keep. At least not now. He had broken the first of the Ten Commandments, "You shall have no other gods before Me." And now he knew it.

After the man, whom Luke tells us is a rich young ruler, walks away, Jesus' disciples were astonished. They probably knew of this man, or at least his reputation. If he wasn't good enough to earn heaven, who was? Jesus answers, "With man it is impossible, but not with God." Who is good enough to gain eternal life for themselves? No one. But God can do it for him.

Yet Peter still doesn't quite get the point. He thinks he has met the requirement the rich man could not meet. "See, we have left everything and followed you." So Jesus addresses Peter with something different. It is something that will soon rear its ugly head among the disciples. The disciples will argue for position among themselves. Their pride will cause them to desire to be first among the disciples, first in the Kingdom. Jesus says, "But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

When I
was growing up, Easter was my favorite holiday. The highlight of the
day was the Sunrise Service. There in the church's garden, we sang
hymns to the soft strumming of guitars in true 1960's style, as the sun
rose, as if on cue, at just the right moment.

There in the dewy garden my imagination took me back to that garden
where so long ago mourning women with tear-swollen eyes shuffled with
baskets filled with spices to do the grim task the Sabbath's coming had
prevented two evenings before. The coming of the Sabbath on Friday
night had necessitated a hasty burial, without proper preparation of
the body. Now as they approached the tomb they must have wondered how
much more unpleasant this task was going to be after the thirty-six
hour delay.

Then came the discovery of the empty tomb and the joyful chaos that
followed. Dropped baskets. Running to get the men. Suddenly the
Scriptures they had always known began to make sense. Of course! Why
didn't we see? How could we have believed this was the end?

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices,My flesh also will rest in hope.For you will not leave my soul in Sheol,Nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.Psalm 16:9, 10

Yet when we had seen Him there, dying an agonizing death, we had our
doubts. Why did God allow this? Insults were shouted but He did not
answer. God did not defend Him. God must be smiting Him. Was all He had
said to us a lie?

...Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.Isaiah 53:4

The tomb is empty! Now we see. (Why didn't we then?) Of course He
had to die! The prophets had told us. He had to die so we could be
healed! He is the sacrifice that all the blood of bulls and goats for
centuries were only a dim, ineffectual shadow.

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?"says the LORD."I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle.I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats."

The sacrifices were a powerless symbol. A tutor made to teach us. He
was the real thing. It all makes sense now. Our sin was not upon the
scapegoat, it was upon the Son of God. He, not the goats, bulls, or
lambs, had to die to satisfy the just wrath of God.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,He was bruised for our iniquities;The chastisement of our peace was upon Him,And by His stripes we are healed.Isaiah 53:5

He was the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,And between your seed and her Seed;He shall bruise your head,And you shall bruise His heel.Genesis 3:15

The Redeemer Job expected to see.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,And He shall stand at last on the earth;And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,That in my flesh I shall see God...Job 19:25, 26

All the shame of these last few days are forgiven. The denials. The
hiding. The cowardice. Our weakness and iniquity were manifest. Yet He
has conquered death for us. Not because we were faithful, but because He was faithful.

I will ransom them from the power of the grave;I will redeem them from death.O Death, I will be your plagues!O Grave, I will be your destruction!Pity is hidden from My eyes.Hosea 13:14

I stood in the church garden, remembering that garden, and as the
sun rose, I remembered that the Son rose, too. As I bathed in the
morning Sonlight, I was overcome with a sense of forgiveness. And
gratitude. And peace.

Now, all these years later, Resurrection Day is still my favorite
holiday. Just as I did then, I bathe in His forgiveness and His love,
because my Friend has first loved me.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for one's friends.John 15:13========================================